Grubwieser,P.; Mühlmann,R.; Parson,W.; PCR primers for the locus D2S1338 were redesigned in order to reduce the length of the amplification product compared with the conventional design. The new amplification primers were applied to highly degraded casework samples, which gave no or only weak results for D2 in previous analyses. The application of the new primers resulted in an increased overall typing success rate. In a concordance study between the conventional and the newly designed primers, no genotype differences were revealed in 503 randomly selected individuals. [Read More]

Salzburger,W.; Brandstätter,A.; Gilles,A.; Parson,W.; Hempel,M.; Sturmbauer,C.; Meyer,A.; The vairone Leuciscus souffia is a cyprinid fish that inhabits river systems in and around the Alps. The complete mitochondrial DNA control region (945 bp) was sequenced in 295 vairone from 22 populations in Central Europe. A total of 51 haplotypes were identified with a maximum pairwise distance between haplotypes of 5.6%. Phylogenetic analyses revealed two major clades in L. souffia, an ‘Italian’ clade, and an ‘Alpine’ clade. [Read More]

Wiegand,P.; Berger,B.; Edelmann,J.; Parson,W.; The X-chromosomal short tandem repeats (STRs) DXS6800, DXS101 and DXS8377 were analysed in male and female population samples from Germany and Austria using a PCR multiplex approach. We investigated 135 family trios from Innsbruck (Austria) and surrounding areas and 50 families and further male and female samples from Ulm (Germany) and surrounding areas. The comparisons of the allele frequencies gave similar distributions for Innsbruck and Ulm although minor variations were found for some alleles. [Read More]

Brandstätter,A.; Parsons,T.J.; Parson,W.; This work presents a selection of 16 SNPs from the coding region of the human mitochondrial DNA. The selected markers are used for the assignment of individuals to one of the nine major European Caucasian mitochondrial haplogroups. The selected SNPs are targeted in two multiplex systems, via the application of the SNaPshot kit, a multiplex method based on the dideoxy single-base extension of unlabeled oligonucleotide primers. The method is conceived as a rapid screening technique prior to sequencing analysis, in order to eliminate multiple suspects from an inquiry or to discriminate between stains in a high volume casework example. [Read More]

Grubwieser,P.; Thaler,A.; Köchl,S.; Teissl,R.; Rabl,W.; Parson,W.; This paper describes a systematic study of the influence of optical, physical, and chemical methods used for fingerprint enhancement on subsequent DNA analysis of biological stains. Latent fingerprints as well as fingerprints in contact with blood and saliva on different surfaces were treated with dactyloscopic methods. As a general finding, subsequent STR profiling of the blood/saliva traces led to good results after all the enhancement methods included in this study. [Read More]